The field was burning red beneath the twilight, tall grass glowing like embers in the wind. Two figures in white protective suits trudged forward, their boots crackling over the stalks. Behind them, the sky stretched heavy with smoke, and ahead, the beehives stood like shrines.
On the hill above, she waited.
Her head was already bare, stripped clean, but the razor still sang across her scalp, metal whispering against skin. Each pass was ceremonial, deliberate — a severing of what had been. Hair drifted down like black ash, vanishing in the glow.
She did not flinch. She welcomed it.
As the final strands fell, bees gathered, as if summoned by the ritual. They clung to her cheeks, her lips, her brow, trembling wings forming a living veil. Their hum filled the silence, vibrating deep into her chest.
The men in suits stopped, watching. They were witnesses, not actors.
When she raised her face, the last light struck it like flame on stone. No hair remained — only smooth skin, gleaming and fierce, a mask of rebirth. The bees parted just enough to reveal her eyes: steady, unyielding, transformed.
And in that moment, the field bent with the sound of wings, as if the world itself bowed to her.